Greg Hinz On Politics

The baffler in chief unsettles Illinois pols

In Springfield, Gov. Bruce Rauner wrangled with the always contentious issue of abortion rights, while trying to limit damage to his budget from possible changes in national health care.

In Washington, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., strutted his populist side, declaring that a proposed executive order to cut back on H-1B visas was "too little, too late."

And in Chicago's suburbs, while one GOP congressman called on the president to release his income tax returns and another held a contentious town hall meeting, a third metaphorically hid under the bed, refusing to meet with anyone except in a controlled setting.

What do all these actions have in common? Donald Trump, the unorthodox and unpredictable national leader whom politicians at every level of government are reacting to and trying to figure out. It's going to be a steep learning curve for them all.

Take Rauner, who clearly knows that Trump is not very popular in Illinois at this point but who doesn't want to provoke either the president or his downstate supporters as re-election time nears.

Rauner recently pulled two stunts that have me flummoxed. One came when he abruptly announced he would veto a bill that would secure abortion rights here, despite campaigning in 2014 as a pro-choice guy. The other was when he quit saying much of anything about repealing and replacing Obamacare, even as fellow GOP governors including John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of Michigan publicly urged Congress to reconsider the plan drafted by House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Team Rauner insists the abortion bill, which also would include public funding, was an unneeded Democratic stunt, and that Rauner is quietly working behind the scenes to protect his state, for instance, by personally discussing the issue with Vice President Mike Pence. But the abortion issue wouldn't have surfaced now if people didn't suspect that the U.S. Supreme Court, tilted further to the right with Trump's new justice, will junk Roe v. Wade. Beyond that, on health care, joining Kasich and Snyder would have been a great chance for Rauner to associate himself with their moderate brand of politics, limiting the ability of whoever is the Democratic nominee to typecast him as Trump's wingman.

The governor's position is just darned awkward—as awkward as a meeting of the senior White House staff, I guess.

Durbin, meanwhile, like a lot of people in his party, is trying to restore relations with working-class folks. I get it. But when Trump moved to limit H-1B visas, which are very popular in the tech and research worlds, arguing that Americans are being short-changed, Durbin yawned. "For a president who has prided himself on his swift action when it comes to immigration," Durbin said in a statement, "an interagency review of the program is a guarded and timid approach."

Perhaps so. But for a senator who always sticks up for Chicago's medical and tech sector, potentially depriving it of needed talent is a jarring step.

Then there are our local GOP congressmen, who generally backed other Republicans for president but still have to work with the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Joliet's Adam Kinzinger called on Trump to disclose his income tax returns. Even if Kinzinger is a bit of a wild hair, and even if he said things like this last fall, as his staff reports, he said it again on Tax Day, April 18. CNN played it way up.

Plano's Randy Hultgren, meanwhile, hosted a town hall meeting where he made some pointed comments about Obamacare, environmental spending and White House visitor logs. His office distributed links to news stories about the meeting, with Hultgren afterward saying democracy by nature "is messy. It's give and take." Perhaps he could enlighten colleague Peter Roskam of Wheaton, who continues to duck any get-together that isn't safely preprogrammed.

News flash: We live in a new era. The old ways are as passe as a Hillary campaign button. Still, finding the successful new way will be a challenge.